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Travel Talk
Our Last Days in Israel
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Here, we rode a cable car to get to the top of the mountain and learned about the last Jewish stand against the Romans and the mass suicide of the 960 Jewish defenders. This was a truly amazing place that receives less that one inch of rain per year, yet almost 1000 people lived on top of this mountain. We also visited Ein Gedi which is a national park and oasis in the desert.
Here is where David hid from Saul and his army in the caves. Our day was not yet complete as we next seen Qumran. It is here where they wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls almost two thousand years ago. We visited the site where the Scrolls were found in 1947. Our day ended with our visit and swim in the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea is 37.5% salt. You cannot sink. We experienced the unique buoyancy of these waters after covering ourselves in therapeutic black mud. We floated our aches and pains away in the Sea
We still had a couple of days of discovery left. We started our second last day on the top of the Mount of Olives. From here we could oversee Jerusalem, the Golden Dome of the Rock, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Kidron Valley, and the walls of the Temple. Driving down the Mount of Olives we toured through these places and more. We walked through the Garden of Gethsemane, seen Mount Zion, David’s tomb, the upper room, the Old City, the Western Wall Tunnels , the Western Wall, which is also known as the Wailing Wall and the Church of St. Anne which is by the pools of Bethesda where Jesus healed the cripple.
Our last day in Israel was spent visiting Bethlehem, the Holy Sepulcher Church, the Garden Tomb, walking the Via Dolorosa and visiting the Holocaust Museum. After our farewell dinner we then rode our coach back to the airport for our flight back home.
This was a truly remarkable journey. We seen and experienced many things. It really is hard as I said earlier to do it justice with words. It needs to be experienced. Grace and Bill would be more than pleased to talk to you about another journey like this and show anyone interested more pictures of this journey.
For more information on Israel or any other trip, rely on your personal travel experts at Vellinga's Travel / Cruise Holidays 519-352-5150.
Vellinga\'s Travel / Cruise Holidays is a full service travel agency taking great pride in our relationships with our customers. We love travel and cruising, and it is our aim not just to satisfy our customers, but to exceed all their travel planning needs. We have been providing excellent service for over fifty years to the Chatham Kent area.
